Oneness and Wonder

Wow!  What’s That ! ? !

We’ve all had such a moment.  Hopefully many of them.  Hopefully nearly every day.  Frank and I just had one yesterday.

We were standing in the kitchen and by some trick of the afternoon light, the wall under the desk, in the office, right below the closed shutters, looked like it was iridescent or had suddenly turned into an awakening computer screen, only much deeper and imperceptible in it’s nature.  We were both startled and felt compelled to walk toward it to get a better look.  It was so weird and surprising.  We wondered, ‘How could such a thing be?’

As we walked closer, we could see that it was just the wall, with the usual cords and whatnot draped down from behind the desk, and somehow the bright afternoon light, reflected off the back of the shutters or the back of my old metal computer monitor, or something, was illuminating the wall in a way that either hadn’t ever happened before, or that we simply hadn’t ever noticed before.  The moment passed.  We brushed it off, still a little surprised, as ‘just the wall.’  Then we left it and went about our business.

The interesting thing to me, in hindsight, was how it stopped us both.  It caught our eye, gave us pause, knocked us right out of our thoughts and activities and drove us into action, in this case, the need to investigate.  We both jumped right into the present moment with an excited curiosity, almost a touch of fear and an alluring love at the same time.  

These are the qualities of awe and wonder.  And when we get there, we step right into the right hemisphere of our brains.  Time is replaced by a sense of flow in the present moment.  There is a pause, we open our mouths and our eyes.  We listen.  The surprise that we feel at the same time demands a moment of recalibration as we consider the newness and the allure.  We loose a sense of self and feel called forth into action or response, the need to do something.  All at once we suddenly tap into a flood of possibilities, new ideas, creative potential and a feeling of healing or well being.  All of this, all at the same time.  

In wonder, we also find a locked in unity, a sense of togetherness or oneness.  When Frank and I saw that light, we both experienced the same body movements, a lifting of the head and chest, a dropping of the jaw, then a peering closer, focusing on the same point, listening, then moving forward, both of our minds and our sense of consciousness, open and as one.  We were moved to respond.

Fascinated and fascinating.  A widened perspective.

Babies and small children experience this sort of state on a regular basis.  It is part of everyday life.  Everything is new and calls out for our attention.  Everything invites us to wonder, to try to figure it out, to open to all the possibilities that could possibly be in play.  “How does that fly fly?”  “Wow!  Look at the shadows of the leaves playing on the sidewalk in the sun.”  This is where art dwells, imagination, creative flow, discovery, the unified whole.  And it’s all imbued with a sense of love.

As infants, with mommy or daddy near, we feel safe and protected. (Given the natural parent/child bonding experience.)  Our parents even join us in our surprise and delight, as the world of exploration opens before us, reliving for themselves the joy of discovery and the love that we all share.

When we bask in this state, we slip ease-fully into Divine Placement in the grander scheme of all things.  Our ego or sense of individuality falls away and we enter the flow of oneness.  All is right with the world, everything is possible and it’s all moving toward love.   In the pause of awe, we become free.  We open our hearts and minds and become one with everything.  Just like any other creative moment, be it singing or dancing, playing music or painting, splashing in the waves, digging in the sand, or stringing beads, we feel ourselves fitting nicely into the whole of the greater totality of being.  And, at the same time find ourselves gratefully opening to the unlimited potential and the wider perspective that dwells there, amongst all possibilities.  

So, let’s remember Oneness and Wonder.  Let's let ourselves be caught more often, even daily, if we can, by the jaw dropping beauty and mystery that surrounds us in every moment of every day.  Let’s not brush it off as something nameable or explainable.  Let’s be baffled for a moment before things start to come clear.  Let’s twirl in the miraculous wonder of it all and move together toward greater healing and love, where new ideas and creative solutions pop up in front of us, coming seemingly right out of nowhere.

 

Josephine Laing
© 2024

What do you love about being alive?

 

If any one of us was suddenly confronted with death, we most likely would find ourselves desperately scrambling to stay alive.  One might ask, "Why?"  The drive for survival seems to be innate.  It is our ego's primary job after all.  But aside from that, what is it that holds us to life?  What is it that we love about being alive?

Starting from the ground up, do you remember running barefoot as a child on the good clean earth, or squishing mud between your toes?  I do.  And it was such a great feeling.  Now I enjoy massaging my feet with a whisper of local olive oil, thanking them for all their good work, carrying me, before tucking them in between the covers of my bed each night.

Our knees and legs gave us cartwheels and skipping in our youth.  And what fun that was.  Now my legs bend and leap with dancing.  They kick me through the water when I swim.  They move me through my day with scarcely a thought and I am so grateful.  

In our still somewhat sexually repressed society, it almost seems scandalous to bring up sex, but who isn't grateful for the juicy and life giving pleasures of our sexual organs?  When I was a teenager, the mother of one of my friends used to speak of the three great pleasures in life: defecation, mastication and fornication.  Two of these happen in the area of our root chakra and aren't we grateful for both?!

Moving up the torso, our internal organs go about the business of life, day in and day out, cleaning our blood, distributing nutrients, pulling air into our bodies to fuel us on our way.  Our heart and gut tend to both the physical and the emotional side of life.  They bless us with inner knowing, self-protection and best of all, love.  Be it love for our families, our children, our friends, or cats and dogs, or nature herself, 'Isn't love grand?'  It brings such sweetness to life.  

Then there are our hands and arms with which we can hug others, write books and letters, sculpt in clay and prepare beautiful meals.  How blessed we are to have our hands and arms.

With our throats, our voices, or mouths, we can sing, 'whisper sweet nothings,' and eat delicious foods.  And our eyes let us take it all in, every delectable spectacle, from the colors of the rainbow or butterflies in flight, to the foods we eat or puffy white clouds floating overhead in the big blue sky.

Then we have our minds, fleet as starlings.  They flit over the details of our lives, processing and categorizing them, bringing forth insights and inspirations from on high.  Our minds let us engage in conscious awareness and bring to us our sense of oneness.  Thus they let us imagine the Easter bunny delighting children in late spring, or allow us to know just what it is like to be a rabbit dashing on swift feet into a safe little burrow, or a hawk soaring overhead, eager for the next meal.

From here, it is easy to step into our crown chakras, our inter-connectedness with everything, our part of the vast creation of life, of the sacred, of the spirit, of the Divine.  We have come in all of our creative glory, arising as it were, from this vast celebration of being into our own unique selves.  And I stand here now, in Gratitude, for every bit of my life, every step of the way.

© Josephine Laing 2019
 

Four Building Blocks for Developing Psychic Ability

These four practices, of meditation, dream work, sanctuary and prayer, when firmly placed on a solid foundation of self-love, will not only help you to develop your psychic ability, they will also let you claim your own true purpose while deepening your individual spirituality.  Please enjoy this hour long talk that was given to an enthusiastic audience in July of 2018. 


© Josephine Laing 2018

The One Thing There Is

 

We are all one.  Or so say the majority of the spiritual teachers who have walked this planet.  But, what does this really mean?  If we are all one, how come we feel so separate from each other? 

I think the answer to this question lies in several areas: 
First, we have been acculturated to dwell predominately in the left hemisphere of our brains with our thought processes.  Here we are analytical and separate, we base our assumptions on information from the past and speculations about the future.  This is the area of our thinking that is constantly trying to evaluate who we are, what we have done and what we should do next.  It is a place of separation and individuation.

Second, we have been conditioned to be less aware of the thought processes that are common to the right hemisphere of our brains.  This is the seat of our oneness, our commonality, our unity consciousness.  And though we are less aware on the surface of this aspect of ourselves, it is clearly at the core of who we are.  When someone calls for help, we don't run away, we run toward them and try to help.  At the deepest level of our beings, we understand that to let the other suffer or die would be to let a part of ourselves suffer or die.

Third, when we all saw that image of earth, taken from space in the 1960's, we opened our eyes as if for the first time and began to see that there were no dividing lines for nations or governments.  Instead we began to see ourselves as very lucky to be alive, all of us, thriving together, on this little blue green marble, floating in the vastness of outer space.  From this perspective, we began to see the earth as one organism, miraculously supporting us all.

And while it is true that we are each unique and different, we now see that we are a part of the whole.  Just like our nose is different from our eyes, we understand that both are a part of our face.  As my mentor Peace Pilgrim puts it, "We are all cells in the body of humanity."   We may each be different, but we are not separate.  And it is our oneness that is at the core of who we are.

But why stop there?  If our individual selves are a part of humanity, and if humanity is a part of life on earth, why not go even further and try on the thought of all of life, either on earth or beyond, as being a part of the vast consciousness that pervades the Universe.

So now, with this thought in mind.  How do you think each aspect of life, or awareness, would like to be treated?  How would your nose like to be cared for?  Certainly not as separate.  That would leave it hanging out there all on it's lonesome.  The same can be said for one another.  How would each of us like to be treated?  

Ah, in steps The Golden Rule.  'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.'  There is some version of this teaching found in every major religion on the planet.  

But what about beyond?  As we move our attention on out into the galaxy, it doesn't take too much more looking for us to begin to see the Universe as a whole?  Awareness arises, dances in one form or another, passes back into compost or spinning galaxies and arises again.  As we start to appreciate the depth of the beauty that we find there, we begin to learn how to embrace the one thing there is.  We find that we can celebrate not only our individuality, but also our unity consciousness, living, loving, caring for and embracing each and every aspect of the whole.   

A very Happy New Year to you all.

© Josephine Laing 2018 

Rescue!

The other day I saw a short video of a rescue that a man did saving the life of a dog in Russia.  The dog had somehow walked out about ten feet onto the spill way of a dam.  There on the perilous edge, with several inches of water flowing underfoot, the dog froze in fear, unable to move to save it's own life.  A spontaneous rescue team assembled with on-lookers overhead.  One man with an assistant had climbed down onto the spill way and then inched his way along the slippery precipice, slowly and carefully approaching the dog from behind. 

When he reached the animal, he patted it in friendly way, speaking softly to it and gently took hold of it's collar.  Then ever so carefully, dragging the terrified and immobilized dog with him, he backed his way to safety.  At that point, he tied a rope, which was dangling from above, around the dog's chest and neck, creating a sling.  The support team from above then hoisted the animal up the sheer concrete wall to safe ground and the man and his assistant climbed back up the ladder to join them.

It was quite a sight.  And it left a deep impression on me.  Here was this man, brave beyond belief, saving the life of a dog that he didn't even know.  Why would someone do such a thing, at risk to all they hold dear?  Not only was his own precious life held delicately in the balance, but the lives of all who love that man or depend on him for their means of support, their lives were also cast into jeopardy.  Yet, at times like these, we think of none of that.  We simply step up and do what needs to be done.  We run into the burning house to save the cat.  We jump into the deep water, even if we don't know how to swim, to save the child from drowning.  One might ask why is that?

In a lecture that I saw by Joseph Campbell, years ago, he said, this is because, "You and the other are one."

Now, that certainly puts a damper on the whole 'survival of the fittest idea,' doesn't it?  In fact it smacks it right in the face, because the deeper reality is our interconnectedness.  It's all of us or none of us. 

My husband last night was commenting on war.  He said that the 'casualties' from the recent Gulf Wars have now totaled more suicides among returned vets than battle deaths.  He also said that an older friend of his, who was in World War Two, once told him that they all tried not to shoot anyone.  They just impressively blew up the surrounding areas in hopes that the "enemy" would retreat. 

All of the great spiritual traditions inform us that we are all one.  There is after all some version of the Golden Rule in every one of them.  "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."  Yet instead, too often our religions teach us separation.  We are told that their way is the only way to union with the Divine and that all others must conform to their beliefs or be condemned.  And, much more tragically, way too often, our religious doctrines see others who don't conform, as being worthy of slaughter.  These are dangerous ideas and they have plagued humanity for way too long. 

This premise of separation also holds true for our patriotic affiliations.  We value our own familiar ways of being over the ways of others.  However, I also recently saw a video on how extensively our ancestry is shared.  In it, an Englishmen denounced all Germans, and an Irish woman denounced the French until they gave some saliva and allowed it to be tested to see how much of their own genetic material was shared by the genes of the others.  Then they realized the folly of their formerly passionately held opinions and saw how denouncing the others was denouncing their very own selves.

The time has come for us to all rescue each other from these dogmas of separation and realize that we are all one.  Each and every one of us is a part of the great stream of life.  We all contain our one little drop from the ocean of Divinity.  And the time is upon us now to embrace this truth.  Not only for us humans in regards to other humans, but also, in regards to all of life.  What we do to the other, we do to ourselves.  If we were to let another die, we would be letting a part of ourselves die.  And the man with the dog on the cliff of the dam demonstrated that to me that with his courage and his deeper instinct of oneness.

© Josephine Laing, 2016

When We Were Six

When we were six, we were geniuses.  We had within us an innate ability to relate to the world around us at a very conscious and playful level.  At this tender, young age, there is an innocence and an openness and a great wisdom.  We see ourselves as a part of the whole and everything around us as a part of me.  

At the age of six, our bodies and minds are quite well developed.  We may be small, and we still have a lot of growing to do, but we can dance and sing and speak.  We know our way around our little part of the world, yet we are still very connected to the whole and we hold fast onto our little thread in the fabric of life.

They call the age of seven 'the age of individuation' because that is when we begin to separate from the very close ties that we have with our parents.  At seven, we start to come more fully into our own identity.  It's almost like coming out of a dream.  We wake up to who we are, separate and individual.

But while we are still just six, we are completely connected and it suits us well.  We see ourselves as a part of the whole.  This lets us communicate directly with our animal friends.  We can feel what they feel and know their thoughts are because we share those same thoughts with them.  And this is our genius, because indeed, it's true.  We are all one.

And now, as humanities consciousness is rising, we are waking up to this realization.  We are now beginning to see once more, as we did in our youth, that everything is a part of the same one thing.  Science shows us that we are actually all fully integrated with everything else.  We are totally interdependent.  We all share the same atoms, both in life and in death, both while we are animate or while we are inanimate.  We are a part of the same thin crust of compost that coats the surface of the earth and we rise up and dance from time to time, sometimes as a tree, sometimes as a bear, sometimes as a person, sometimes as you, sometimes as me.

So, because of this, this understanding of our oneness, I like to try and remember my six year old self, to slip back into that playful and interconnected state of consciousness as often as possible.  Here I can once more be a member of the community of everything, with all of it full of life and light.  When I do, the rocks, the trees, the water, the air are all willing and wanting to be my friends.

So, I invite you to join me, if you will, in this dance, together in harmony, in the present moment of now,  ... and now,  ... and now.

© Josephine Laing, 2016

What Happens When We Die?

As we make our transition into death, we move into a limitless state of being, full of neutral compassion.  Our awareness broadens and we become one with everything.  Please enjoy this short video featuring a beautiful story of a lovely near death experience.

http://www.nderf.org/

© Josephine Laing, 2015

The Devas of Animals

Just like us, animals have over souls and spirit helpers.  Connecting with the Devas of our animal friends can bring grace and ease into all of our lives.  Please enjoy this short video on The Devas of Animals.

© Josephine Laing, 2015

How We Think

We are often taught what to think, but we are not usually taught how to think.  Please enjoy this short video on how to become aware of the different ways that we think.

© Josephine Laing, 2015

The Illusion of Separation Dissovles In The Present Moment

Usually the present is a pretty good moment.  It's our thoughts from the past and our concerns from the future that create so much trouble in our minds.  If we stay with right now, everything is pretty fine.  For instance, how are you in this moment?  Probably pretty good.  Even in those times when things get a little tricky -- some minor emergency occurs -- we can usually jump into high gear and handle the situation with clarity and competency. 

However, there are those occasional times when we do feel really challenged in the present moment.  I'm so grateful to my parents for having taught me manners, because most of the time, those are what I fall back on. This always helps to diffuse a bad situation and keep things a little cleaner.  It's never a good idea to add fuel to anyone's fire.  We all slip up of course, myself included from time to time, but when we do we can notice it, forgive ourselves, and use our intention to do better next time.  

Sometimes our buttons really do get pushed and we start to lose it a little. Then the question becomes, how can we find and practice Big Love, that sense of oneness, in the face of those stinky moments.  We do have to love ourselves enough to stand up for ourselves.  But, if we can find our presence of mind, we can look at ourselves and the other as two actors on a stage.  We can notice the role we've each taken on: victim, authority, innocent, saboteur, whatever it might be. Then we can let a part of our self stand back and watch the dance between the two.  This lets the interaction become more like a board game -- win some, lose some -- rather than a matter of pride, position, or influence.  

Our sense of separation is an illusion.  When we realize this it leads us right back into love.  We know this is an illusion because if someone is drowning, or about to jump off a bridge, or our cat is in the house that has caught fire, we forget about our own lives and do everything we can to save them.  This is because deep in our beings we know that we and the other are one.  We don't run from danger, we charge into it to save the other.  

Guru Pathik said, "The greatest illusion of this world is the illusion of separation. Things you think are separate and different are actually the same. We are all one people, but we live as if divided." We need to stop focusing on our individuation. Our sense of separation is nothing short of a social pathology. It is the source of war. Them vs. us, superiority, and inferiority complexes all come from this illusion. Every cell is needed in the body of humanity.  

Kabir said, "Ignorance has locked the gate. The only thing that can open it is love."  When we are in the present moment we are in our right brains, the source of oneness, and this unites us with the true heart of our expansive and interconnected love for ourselves and all our journey mates here on the path of life.  

© Josephine Laing, 2014

We Are All One

Throughout spiritual literature we find the phrase, "We are all one." I am sometimes asked, how do we find oneness when we all feel so separate? I love what Aldous Huxley said about the brain. He said the brain is like a reducer valve, mitigating all of the information from the universe. A reducer valve is something that makes the flow of information or material smaller. For instance, the water out at the street flows through a four inch pipe. We've all seen a fire hydrant blow, it's a tremendous geyser. If that amount of water pressure came out of our kitchen sink it would blow the sink right off the wall. So instead, there are reducer valves to manage the amount of water that flows from the street into our homes. Our brains are the same way. If we had access to all the information of the universe, all the time, it would short our circuits, much like that exploding kitchen faucet.

However, we can access our little part of that entire creation by simply stepping into the right side of our brains. Here, in our right brains, we find the present moment, the eternal now, the quiet mind, psychic perception, limitless possibilities, and new insightful solutions. Here we are the observer, where everything is perfect, whole, and complete. This is the place where we are connected to everything. There is an innocent openness, a rich sense of abundance, and euphoria. 

One of my favorite analogies is that of the drop of water and the ocean. A drop of water is a part of all water, however it is differentiated into a single drop. It is no more separate from the rest of water than my baby finger is separate from me. My finger is not separate, but it is different from the rest of me. Similarly, our consciousness is a unique part of divinity. Not separate, but different, with access to all being a part of the whole. When we look at the world and ourselves this way we see the illusion of separation for what it is: merely an illusion.
 
This idea of separation can be very dangerous. It is the source, after all, of war. It causes the them vs. us mentality. When instead we see everyone and everything as a part of the same whole, but delightfully and interestingly different, then the whole world becomes our family. And we are in love with everyone and everything.

In closing, I'll leave you with a little guidance for how to step into the right brain. My favorite is to spend some time out in nature. Nature opens us to an expansiveness and a clarity that allows us to receive inspiration, which always comes right out of the right brain. Another great way is to spend time with a dog. Dogs are loving, in the present moment, accepting of everything. They are perfect expressions of God, which is dog spelled backwards. Perhaps my favorite way of accessing the right brain is to take a moment to listen for just a second to that birdsong that just sounded right outside the window. Try it right now, see if you can catch it ... did you notice, that for right then you didn't have any thoughts? You were open and receptive. Enter there. 

© Josephine Laing, 2014